October 19th Northern California Webinar Summary

Today, on October 19 we had our Northern California webinars, our first of three, Traumatic Brain Injury Statewide Webinar Series titled “Improving Service Coordination for People with a TBI”. 

Lynda Eaton, a physical Therapist at the Mercy General Hospital and Traumatic Brain Injury Site for California presented on Strategies for Working with the TBI Consumer.  Lynda began by defining Traumatic Brain Injury as being caused from external forces and the difference between those and other types of brain injuries.  She detailed the impacts on memory and the physical, sensory, cognitive, emotional and behavioral changes that TBI has on a person.

Strategies she suggested for working with consumer with TBI. One was to have them or assist them with developing a daily routine in order to expend the least amount of mental energy. She suggested that they use a daily planner that realistically estimates task completion times and to spend 5-10 minutes each morning and night going over tasks they need to do for the day. You can also help your consumer by helping them find methods to say focus, rest, and to find their time most brain-intensive work at their most productive time of day.  

Presenting a consumer perspective, Robert Cline provided spoke about life with a TBI discussed his journey to learning how to manage his life. This included assistance that he received through American River College and his struggle to find employment. He now works part time with the help of his parents and stated that finding employment is difficult for people with TBI. Robert and Lynda discussed the services and barriers that are including their some of frustrations with loss of time for early treatment due to government and insurance funding.  They also spoke about how crucial it has been to connect to knowledgeable community partners to assist others with TBI in getting the services they need.

We were enthusiastic about this first webinar and the feedback we received.  We will be doing our next webinars on focusing on the Central Coast for Thursday October 21st,  and our Southern California webinar for Monday October 25^th.

Stay tuned for our upcoming set of webinars. In March we will be hosing the VA Services and Systems for Veterans with TBI. In June we will be hosing the Maximizing Community Resources for People with TBI. We are excited to be bringing these trainings to continue the collaboration, relationship building and know how to be able to provide quality services to not only those with a Traumatic Brain Injury and their families, but also all those with disabilities. I would like to thank our participants from CFILC, Department of Rehabilitation, Centers for Independent Living in the region and the California Health and Human Services for taking part in the webinar.